


There's Gonna Be Danger

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Music [1]
Category: Hogan's Heroes
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:04:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it takes a loss, or a near-loss, to get things right. Sometimes it takes a little help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Gonna Be Danger

Failure hurt. They weren’t used to losing, had had too long a lucky streak, and when they lost Steiner, everyone felt it, the men confined to barracks listening in wait for the shot. 

“It’s not right.” Newkirk slammed his fist into the wall. 

“We almost had him.” Carter agreed, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “He was gonna hand everything he was working on over to London, too. I guess… I guess that’s why they, uh…”

“That’s not why they killed him.” Hogan said darkly. “They had no way of knowing about that. Someone must have found out Steiner’s secret, and whoever they were, they blabbed it to Hochstetter.”

“They coulda at least waited… If they planned on doing it after he was out of camp, we’d’ve had time to get him out ourselves. Wait, what secret?”

“The secret that had Steiner desperate to get out of Germany in the first place. He… Hell, Carter, I don’t know how to explain this to you…”

“Steiner prefers—Steiner preferred—men.” LeBeau cut in. 

“For what?” Carter blinked.

“For making love.”

“Be serious! A man just died and you’re making jokes like that?!”

“No, LeBeau’s telling the truth.” Newkirk moved a little further from the group. “Not that he could have told anyone in London about it, anyway. They’d’ve put him up against the wall, too, but I guess no one told him that, ‘cause he was ready to switch sides over it.”

“That’s barbaric.” LeBeau made a face. “You shoot your own soldiers? There is a war on.”

“It’s not my decision. If it was me in charge, I wouldn’t do anything to put our forces short a willing man, but it’s not me in charge, is it?” He snapped. “And France just lets nances run riot in the trenches?”

“France welcomed all her patriotic sons in the trenches.”

Newkirk deflated a little, nodding and climbing up to his bunk without further argument. Carter just looked between them all, wide-eyed.

“So he really is… like that? How do you even… I mean, what do you even do with a fella?”

“You really wanna know?” Newkirk growled.

“Oh. Oh! No, I didn’t mean… Well, gosh, I mean, you know—I mean…”

“We know what you mean, Carter.” Kinch sighed, patting him on the back. “Well… better go tell London they won’t be getting Steiner after all.”

“Yeah… Yeah.” Hogan headed for his quarters, pausing with his hand on the door. “All right. If Schultz comes by when Kinch is in the tunnel, tell him the two of us are talking in here and send him off.”

“Oui, mon colonel.” LeBeau saluted, holding the bunk open for Kinch while Carter watched the window. 

Most of the men let it go, after that. Regardless of what kind of man Steiner was, losing was hard, but now that it was done, dwelling on it wouldn’t do any good. LeBeau kept an eye on everyone else—well, on the rest of the barracks and then on Hogan’s door.

Hogan took it the hardest, of course, would blame himself for any and every failure that happened under his command. After that, it was hard to tell. Carter perhaps took it the hardest after that, LeBeau thought—he at least seemed the most… sad, that a man had been killed, and surprised that they had failed to get him to safety. There was something in him that the war still hadn’t touched, something young and still-innocent. 

It was harder to tell, with Newkirk, who was angry and bitter, turned to face the wall, his back pointedly to the rest of the barracks. When Kinch returned from the tunnel and went to report to Hogan, Newkirk excused himself to work on repairing uniforms, and LeBeau followed. 

“What do you want?”

“You are repairing uniforms.” He shrugged. “I am better with sewing than most of the others, I thought I would make the work go twice as fast.”

“That all?”

“And offer an ear. Are you angry about Steiner, or are you angry about London?”

“I’m not angry.”

LeBeau laughed. 

“Fine. I’m angry. And why shouldn’t I be? All that work we put in, and for nothing. I’m supposed to take that with a smile?”

“No one said that.”

“It’ll get around.” He frowned. “About Steiner. And then everyone who’s not in on the game? They won’t be sorry—why should they? Just another Jerry, a nancy one at that. We promised him something, and we failed, and thanks to Hochstetter coming in and bollocksing everything up, we’re not going to get to forget it, either, because between the guards and the few prisoners who don’t know what he could’ve meant to London, everyone’ll have something to say about it, and none of ‘em will be sorry for him.”

“But you are?”

“Ruddy hell, I’m human, aren’t I?” He turned away, taking the couple of turns down to the little alcove off the tunnel that served as a sewing room. 

LeBeau stuck to him, and when Newkirk sat to work on one uniform, he picked up another. “So you are not offended, that Steiner was what you call nancy?”

“No. I’m not. Why, are you?”

“Absolutement pas. For that matter, I would not be bothered if I was fighting shoulder to shoulder with a man like that.”

“… Really?” Newkirk paused, needle hovering over a torn cuff.

“Of course. As long as we are on the same side, why should I have a problem?”

“Most blokes have a problem with that sort existing.”

“More girls for the rest of us.” LeBeau shrugged. “And what do you have a problem with?”

“I have a problem with everything. The war. Jerry. Bloody Haskell in barracks four.”

“And you have a problem with men who have a problem with you.”

“Course I do.”

“But they do not know, that it is a problem with you, do they?”

He frowned, setting his sewing aside. “What are you getting at?”

“You are upset, not because you do not like men like Steiner, but because you are a man like that yourself. You can tell me, I do not judge.”

“You tell a soul and I’ll be the one lined up against the wall.”

“My lips are sealed. But… better, to have someone to talk to, right?”

“Nothing to talk about, even if I am so.”

“You can still dream, Pierre.” LeBeau rolled his eyes. “You can still fall in love. You can still need to have someone you can trust who knows about you and does not care.”

“Thanks.” He grunted, going back to the uniform with a shrug. “Rather not talk about it, what with… well, with everything. But I appreciate the understanding.”

He had to admit—not out loud, of course, he’d never admit as much out loud—that it was less of a burden knowing he had one friend who was all right with it. He wasn’t looking forward to men of his sort becoming the talk of the camp, and while it wasn’t as though LeBeau could really hold him back from a fight, at least he could put an understanding hand on his arm and remind him not to get involved in something that would tip his hand.

They worked a while in silence, as long as they really dared to, before heading back up to the barracks.

“Lucky Schultz hasn’t been back.” Kinch nodded to them both. “We’re still confined to barracks. At least Hochstetter’s leaving camp.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“I don’t want to know what he had to say.” Newkirk grumbled, climbing back up to his bunk.

“Colonel might have been listening, but he’s in a bad mood. You can ask if you want.” He shrugged, motioning LeBeau to the door. 

“Yeah, he’s really not used to losing.” Carter nodded. “Boy, I don’t think he’s ever lost before, I mean, not really.”

LeBeau sighed and started work on dinner. Bad mood or not, a plate of something nice might get him through the door, and he didn’t doubt the Colonel had been listening in on every word spoken in Klink’s office, no matter how he felt about losing. He didn’t blame Newkirk for not wanting to hear it, but the rest of the command team was curious, and none of them felt up to disturbing their leader without something to ease the sting. And, of course, Schultz would be by eventually— and some information could doubtless be bribed out of him.


End file.
